Red Alert: The deadly four-armed robot known as XT4 has escaped! Is this yellow cyborg monstrosity worth adding to menace your collection, or should he remained sealed in his prison bag upon the store shelves? Read BZP Reporter xccj's review and decide for yourself!

PresentationFrom the design of the box to the instruction manual, these are the first things you see before building the set.

Yes, it is another villain from the second wave of Hero Factory Breakout sets. His character is a loner who doesn't even get along with the other criminals. Although he apparently lacks emotions, his feelings can still be hurt if you insult him, so if he corners you, be sure to be kind? Okay, enough about the storyline, onto the set. As with the previous wave, he comes in a pouch instead of a canister, and this wave has a gold seal along the top. (FYI, the zipper is just printed on… I had to cut it opened to get inside. But it is resealable, if you so choose to do so.)

The front shows off XT4 swinging all his four arms at you, with fire and explosions going off behind him. (Hey, wasn't the fire theme last year?) Luckily, Hero Nex can be seen in the background, rushing forward to apprehend the villain. Some other details include the promo for +200 game points. The back of the bag has more advertisements for the game, as well as a few other images of XT4.

BuildingHalf the fun is had building the set. How fun is it to build and how easy or challenging is it?

XT4 is fairly easy to build, especially if you've tackled other Hero Factory sets before. Put together the body, snap together the limbs, and add on the armor and extras. Boom, you're done.

Set DesignNow that the set is complete, we can critique how it looks from every angle. New or interesting pieces can also be examined here.

XT4 has 39 pieces to him, plus a few spares. That's about average for Hero Factory sets of this price. He comes with a few interesting pieces, most notably the new, shorter body piece. It is 6 lengths tall, 3 lengths wide at the hips, and 5 lengths wide at the shoulders. It's one of the smaller body pieces I've seen produced in Hero Factory and Bionicle, and so far I believe it's exclusive to this set. And despite its small size, it still had 4 technic holes in it, including one through the center ball joint. I see this piece as being very useful for MOCing.

There are also a few other cool elements in this set. The middle arms are connected via the cool joint extender piece which débuted in sets last summer. There's also the large 9x9 saw blade, and this is the cheapest set it's been in. Also of interest is the yellow minifig gun that appeared in the classic Space set (and some of the recent firefighter sets.) It's intriguing that minifig weapons are being used in Hero Factory now. The next interesting piece is the head, which is rather narrow and similar to Meltdown from the first wave of villains. (Maybe they're related?) The set also comes with some of the claws and spikes from the Savage Planet sets of last year, and a Hero Core with a promotional code printed on the back. The core doesn't go onto the set anywhere, so I guess XT4 just stole it to be mean. (But we're glad he did, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to enter in the game code on the back and get the points from it!)

While the pieces that build up XT4 are interesting, the overall design is a little lackluster. Basically, XT4 is a giant stick figure with six limbs, and he hardly has any armor on to bulk things up. At the very least he has a consistent color scheme: light grey and black highlighted by yellow. But he doesn't have the same flow or bulk of other villains, and looks almost like he'll tangle himself up in his four arms just trying to escape. In my opinion, he's not the scariest looking villain ever.

PlayabilityThe other half of the fun is in playing with the set. How well does the set function and is it enjoyable to play with?

Gosh with all the extra limbs, XT4 can be a bit tricky to pose. He has three joints in each of his legs, which allows for greater mobility, however all of these connections are restricted, with only full movement on his hips. In some regards, the lack of armor on the upper legs allows for tighter bends on the joints, so XT4 can at least really work his legs. The arms each have two joints, but the tubes that attach to the saw and laser gun restrict movement quite a bit. Additionally, since all the arms are so close together, they can get in the way of each other. The head also has decent up-and-down and side-to-side movement, but he's stuck in a slouched position.

As far as play features go, XT4 is a bit lacking. He doesn't have any launchers; instead his laser gun is merely an antenna attached to the space gun, which also has the claw pieces clipped to it. This weapon itself seems too small for the set, and is incredible fragile and breaks quite often. The saw blade, on the other hand, is almost too big. It can spin around easily enough, but make sure it's positioned away from the tube or else it will get stuck.

At best, XT4 is great for role playing. His six limbs allow for lots of posing, although it can get messy at times. Today, he's fighting Hero Evo for the fate of the galaxy, since Nex was unavailable / not purchased. (Although since he had four arms, you're going to need two pairs of handcuffs!)

Final ThoughtsOnce it's all said and done, how does the set stack up? Should I get it?

ProsWhat's to like?

Awesome new body piece

Other cool pieces too

Nice color scheme

Descent posability

ConsWhat's not to like?

Looks like a mess

Limbs can easily be tangled

Minifig scale weapon seems too small

Laser weapon also falls apart easy

Saw can get stuck on tube

Overall, XT4's appearance isn't my favorite. He doesn't look strong or powerful or menacing. Instead, he looks like a skinny robot who's trying to carry too many weapons at once. In my opinion, he's not one of the better villains. But if you're into the thin, four arm types, then we'll just have a difference of opinions. It is a new direction LEGO took for building a humanoid, but I just don't think it worked out well. What I do like about this set is the pieces, especially the brand new mini body, which doesn't appear anywhere else yet. (Although I'm sure it'll come back next year.) So buy this set for the pieces if you want them, but not the character.